Dating is awful. Before making a match and living “happily ever after,” many of us suffer through, at best, catfishes, ghosters, and generally emotionally unavailable people who have no idea what they really want.

At worst, we encounter predatory, abusive behavior, but we continue to search for royalty among a sea of frogs in the name of love.

But hey, at least we’re in good company. Read on for a sampling of experiences gleaned from dating in the digital age — real-life tales that are mortifying, humorous, touching and sometimes all of the above.

Me and Mr. V

When I was 22, my heart was stomped on by a boy in a band. To bounce back, I downloaded Tinder (as most millennials do), where I met him. We’ll call him Mr. V.

Mr. V was 25. His favorite band was Led Zeppelin, favorite movie “Almost Famous” and he always had Tagalongs Girl Scout cookies in his freezer. We exchanged messages for three days — already bucking the conventional “DTF” use of the app — before finally grabbing a drink. The first time we made out, we were listening to a bootleg copy of one of Jimi Hendrix’s later studio sessions. In hindsight, it sounds like I was dating a member of Greta Van Fleet — believe me, I’m feeling the shame — and have a pattern to break.

But our relationship based solely on what we both liked (not what we were like) came to a screeching halt about two months in, after we had started sleeping together. One night, after what was an initial A+ execution, we decided to go for the best two out of three. Adopting a new position about six minutes in, we both started feeling really good — like, “close your eyes for fear they might bulge out of your head” good.

Sadly, I had to go and open my eyes.

Spotting a solid, white mass next to my left, I tried to remain focused on the task at-hand. I couldn’t. And as Mr. V reached his climax, I turned my head to finally look at the true object of my attention. Rather calmly, considering the circumstances, I asked:

“Are those teeth?”

Mr. V got off the bed and looked at me, exposing the two teeth missing from his bottom row.

“What happened?” I asked again. “Are you OK? Those are teeth?”

Pulling his pants and boxers up in record time, Mr. V grabbed his dental implant and pocketed it.

“I can’t believe you’d be so shallow!” He huffed before throwing his shirt on and heading for the door.

“I just want to know what happened!” I shouted back.

But the damage was done. Mr. V and I never spoke again. All he left me with was the story of how I f----d the teeth out of someone.

I never hooked up with anyone from the app again. Thanks, Tinder.

— Jessi Roti, Arts & Entertainment

Hooking up is hard to do

With the popularity of hooking-up culture, finding someone to hook up with is super easy. It’s the finding someone to hook up with who isn’t unhinged, suspicious, or secretly that guy from TV show “You” that’s hard.

I’ve had guys on the dating apps ask me: Could they bang my fat rolls? Could I love him although he has a small penis? Could I come to his house and allow him to tie me up and have his way before his girlfriend came home?

Of course they were all immediately blocked, but this guy I was feeling made it out of my OkCupid inbox and into my text messages.

That’s when the red flags started.

Bruh started telling me he was going to teach me how to be a good girl and treat a man right. When sex came up, he told me there was no such thing as condoms, and as my man he had the right to climax inside me. BLOCKED!

This should have been the day I gave up on men, but I had to be dumb a little longer. To quote Erykah Badu, “You gotta get your weave snatched out a couple of more times” before you’re ready to move on.

— Demetria Mosley, RedEye freelancer and artist

How I met my fiance

I got back on OKC with my friend’s advice in mind: “Only swipe right if you can imagine them looking up from between your legs.”

That’s the bar stool story of how I met my fiance.

The story I keep closest to my heart: I got divorced during my last semester of grad school, back in 2017. It was a queer marriage, so I not only felt like a failure to myself, but to the decades of activists who’d battled for the right to wed.

Everything had been reduced to the most basic elements — I felt flat and exhausted. I didn’t want to need a partner, but I was (and am) totally invested in the woo-woo healing powers of love, when it arches towards acts of justice and mutual respect. I wanted to feel seen and see someone else.

I started therapy.

But, duh, I also started online dating — a few times — swiping right on baristas, poets, artists, even comedians, each lap ending in a cruddy date and big proclamations about loving myself as I deleted the apps. “It’s time for me to focus on me.” “I’m a catch.” “How do I meet people who aren’t at work?”

The Apps would always be back on my phone within a few weeks. Kyle, 30, holding fish. Swipe left. Rachel, 37, in bow tie. Swipe right. Alex, 28, poly with a primary partner who does cosplay. A good person would swipe right and release themselves from the repression of monogamy. Swipe left.

I get overwhelmed, however, thinking about the first time I ran into my dude’s profile — mostly because such an underwhelming moment changed everything: I messaged first, he used “cross-pollination” in his response, he wanted to get breakfast on Saturday, he was reading when I got to the restaurant.

He grinned, looking up from between the pages of his book.

I wanted to imagine everything with him.

— KT Hawbaker, Theater Loop

Best of the Bumble bios

I used to have a list of reasons why I’d never use dating apps. There’s the algorithmic death of spontaneous connection and the maybe getting catfished or murdered. Mostly, I didn't want to write off someone in one swipe.

Then, I started swiping. Sometimes a Bumble bio is worth 1,000 words. ​

Take one 25-year-old man who left me wanting more: “When my mother was pregnant with me, they did an ultrasound and found she was having twins. When they did another ultrasound a few ...”

Cut off.

A 27-year-old guy said he recently moved to Chicago. He is a professional cuddler with “Great Oral Skills ;)” who hates jellyfish and also saved a woman from a burning car, according to his bio. Also, “No Felonies.”

A 26-year-old said he will talk your ear off like he’s done “4 lines of coke, taken 20 MG of Adderall, and drank 7 cups of coffee OR I’ll be quiet like a Buddhist monk who took a vow of silence.”

“There is no in between,” according to his bio.

Daniel works at “N/A” at “N/A.”

One 35-year-old man said he’d “usually prefer a two some, but also enjoy a good threesome, foursome… GOLF that is!”

A twist.

An honest 29-year-old: “Im not the best looking guy in the world & I’m a broke actor/comedian.”

Oh man.

“But I’m not full of s--t though.”

Oh, ok.

Frank didn’t need a bio because his lead photo was him in a full-length fur coat. Wyatt is a “Human male” and Nigel is “Looking for my first Ex Wife.”

Then, a 34-year-old, with a sobering approach to the app bio that made me want to drink: “I don’t know what life has in store for tomorrow, but I do know that we are all getting older and I would like to find someone to remember the days with, and to grow old with.”

And, yes, everyone on dating apps seems to love tacos. But only one person, Connor, had the answer for the city's best: “Taco Joint in Lincoln Park.”

— Morgan Greene, metro reporter

The catfish

Stanford.

I swiped on Drew (or maybe it was Dean. I can’t remember, to be honest) a few years ago. He was a recent Stanford law student graduate, and let’s face it, he was hot.

The chemistry seemed to be there so we made plans to meet up for coffee. I was understandably disappointed when he canceled. He had to study for his bar exam.

We tried for coffee the following weekend. I mean, what was the point of talking if we were not going to meet? Again, I got the “Sorry, I can’t make it” text.

Of course, I did not want to believe it when my friends told me I was being catfished. But one evening at work we decided to Google this guy. Nothing came up!

I asked a friend to look him up on a court computer and again, nothing. This man does not exist!

I did not know what to think. And now I want to know — who was texting me this whole time?